Joy and grief

Two sides of the same coin?

Nov 04, 2024

I find it a relief when I hear people talking about the Big Stuff. The stuff that gives life its meaning and texture. The light and the dark. Joy and grief.

I really enjoyed a recent online gathering hosted by behaviour change consultancy New Ways, with wise souls

Poonam Dhuffer

Emily Bazalgette

Letesia Gibson

and Eloise Maxwell.

You guessed it, I’m 100% the person who’ll happily spend my lunchtime exploring “the transformative power of grief and joy, and how we can create spaces for both in our organisations.”

Bright sunshine and moody clouds: my favourite combo.

Most of us have had at least one soul-depleting job at an organisation. I’m willing to bet a big factor is not being able to express or share our normal human emotions.

It really struck me, years ago, when a colleague told me that his father had died the week before. He had taken a few days off, and he was sad, but now it was time to get back to work. To get on with things again.

I have no idea what his experience of grief was. But I found it absurd and extremely sad that this is our culture. The utter lack of space or ability to acknowledge our sorrows and our joy, with the people we spend our days alongside.

Anyway. I’m not here to share any full-baked thoughts on this topic. Instead, here’s a list (in no particular order) of some of the gems people shared in the session, that I scribbled down:

Grief and joy dance together - they are two sides of the same coin.
Joy is often experienced alongside appreciation, gratitude, celebration. It’s a process, a dimension, experienced in connection to each other and to nature. It moves through us and touches others.
Grief is a response to any loss, not just bereavement. It can be grief over what we anticipate (like climate collapse). An anticipated future that we now know will not happen (like a relationship ending)
Rituals help us to mourn. Including mourning the old system(s) that are dying.
We need containers, we need rituals to be able to experience joy and grief (in organisations and more widely).
If we’re experiencing irritation, or discomfort, or disconnection - this can be a sign of unacknowledged grief.
Healing is slow. It’s necessary for old parts of our self to decay so that new parts can emerge.
We need ‘slow sanctuaries’ in our homes, where we work. A slow practice. How can we slow down more? How can we cultivate slowness? This is the balm that makes healing possible.
Organisations don’t have the capacity to hold space for grief and joy. So many of us are overloaded, stressed - anxious people aren’t capable of holding space, of grounding others.
Orgnaisations tend not to offer space for reflection. There are no ‘slow spaces.’ We need to cultivate the capacity to listen without ‘fixing.’
In grief work, there is no ‘call to action.’ It is just there to be experienced.
In social change / activist spaces - joy creates the oxygen, the fuel to be able to continue doing the work together.
I loved the idea of sharing weekly celebrations with each other at work.

Autumn makes the topic of grief feel more alive for me. Things are slowly decaying, the summer has ended. I recently read someone who said that this capitalist society forces us to live in an ‘endless summer.’ Always ‘on’, high energy, relentlessly forward.

So creating ‘slow sanctuaries’, as

Poonam Dhuffer

expressed, are so desperately needed. Spaces where we can slow down, mourn, celebrate, heal, with each other. I’m thinking about how I can create more of these spaces in my life.

Thank you Poonam, Emily, Letesia and Eloise for all your wisdom.

ps. If we don’t already know each other, I’m Sarah Tulej, a portrait photographer for camera-shy change makers, a climate justice advocate, and a facilitator. I’m from the North of England and based in Rotterdam.